Yiddish Folktales

by Beatrice Weinreich

  “And whose chest is it?”

  “It belongs to your son-in-law,” was the reply.

  “Can you change some copper coins into gold for me?” asked the man.

  “Certainly. Why not?”

  He gave them forty copper coins and they gave him three gold ones in exchange.

  By then it was almost dawn, and the parnes, taking care to remember the place where the peasants were digging, drove away. After great difficulty he found the right road again and made his way home. He told no one of his adventures, however.

  Several years went by. The parnes had a daughter for whom various matches had been proposed, but she had rejected them all. This made her father unhappy, because some of the young men were very rich. As time passed, the parnes became ever more impatient to know who his son-in-law would be.

  He thought and thought about it and finally settled on a plan. He dropped one of his gold coins on a path that led to the synagogue, vowing that whoever picked it up would be his son-in-law.

  The next morning when he went to check, the coin was gone. He dropped a second coin and it too disappeared; then he dropped a third, with the same results. So the parnes announced in the synagogue that he had lost three gold coins that had been left to him by his grandfather and that he wanted whoever had found them to come forward.

  Now, a water carrier lived in that town, a man with a blind father whom he led to the synagogue three times a day. And it was this water carrier who had found the gold coins. He acknowledged in the synagogue that he had found them, then hurried home and brought them back to the parnes.

  The parnes returned to his own home greatly dejected. To think that he would have a water carrier for a son-in-law! A man so unschooled that he hardly knew how to hold a pen. Still, to honor his vow he went to the water carrier’s parents and asked them to let their son live with him. “I’ll teach him how to write properly, and furthermore, I’ll put him to work in my business.”

  But the water carrier’s parents refused, because the blind father needed his son to guide him to the synagogue. The parnes, however, promised to hire someone to do that.

  So the water carrier went to live with the parnes and studied diligently, and it was not long before he learned a great deal. Nor was it long before he and the daughter were in love, and they decided to marry, even though they feared that it would make the parnes unhappy.

  After the wedding the son-in-law and his bride continued to live in the parnes’s home. One evening the parnes took a spade and asked his son-in-law to go with him to the place where he had seen the men digging long ago. He pointed out the exact location, but though the son-in-law dug and dug, he found nothing. Finally they went home.

  Nevertheless, the parnes was determined to have a wealthy son-in-law. So he made him go back to the spot where he had dug before and dig even deeper. Again without success. This time the parnes was so angry that he drove the young couple out of his house.

  The man and his bride rented a cellar, where they set up a little ironmonger’s shop to earn their living. Once when the husband was away, a peasant came into the shop and asked for three whetstones to sharpen his scythes. He explained that he couldn’t pay money, but that he had an iron chest at home which he would give in return. “Good,” said the wife. Soon afterward the peasant came back bringing an old iron chest all covered with cobwebs. He tossed it into the shop and then went away in a great hurry.

  When the husband, the former water carrier, came home that evening, his wife told him the whole story. So he went to work on the dusty chest and, after some struggle, wrenched it open. You can imagine their astonishment when they saw it was crammed with gold coins exactly like the ones he had picked up on the path to the synagogue. The husband and wife ran out of the shop in search of the peasant, but he was nowhere to be found.

  So the two of them went into town to see the rabbi. They gave him a great deal of money and told him to build a large synagogue of the finest materials. But until it was finished, they said, he must keep their identity as donors a secret.

  And that’s what the rabbi did. The synagogue was built and some three years later it was ready. The entire congregation gathered to get their seat assignments, but two seats, one in the men’s section and one in the women’s, were left unassigned.

  The parnes too came to the synagogue and greeted people warmly. His daughter and son-in-law stood off by themselves, for the parnes had not spoken to them since he drove them from his house. The rabbi delivered an address from the bime. Then the young couple were led to the unassigned seats, and the rabbi announced that they were the ones who had donated the money for the synagogue.

  The parnes fell at his son-in-law’s feet and begged his forgiveness. The congregation asked the couple to tell them the whole story of the whetstones and the chest and the fortune. Then the parnes told everyone how the peasants had foretold that he would have a rich son-in-law. The father and his daughter’s husband were reconciled and became good friends. And the young couple lived out the rest of their lives in honor and prosperity.

  67

  Water Wouldn’t Hurt

  An exhausted Hasid came running to his rebbe. “Rebbe, help. Take pity. My house is burning.”

  The rebbe calmed the Hasid. Then, fetching his stick from a corner of the room, he said, “Here, take my stick. Run back to your house. Draw circles around it with my stick, each circle some seven handbreadths from the other. At the seventh circle, step back seven handbreadths, then lay my stick down at the east end of the fire. God will help you.”

  The Hasid grabbed the stick and started off. “Listen,” the rebbe called after him, “it wouldn’t hurt also to pour water. Yes, in God’s name, pour water. As much water as you can.”

  68

  The Unlearned Villager

  There was a well-known rabbi, I’ve forgotten his name—I got this story from my father, of blessed memory. This rabbi was once on a journey. It was a Friday, and when he passed the home of a Jewish villager, a yeshuvnik, he decided not to travel any further. So he sent his servant in to ask whether he, the rabbi, could spend the Sabbath there.

  “In my house?” stammered the villager. “I don’t know. There’s another yeshuvnik not far from here. The rabbi could certainly spend the Sabbath with him.”

  This reply seemed strange to the rabbi. Jewish villagers in the old days were generally very hospitable. In particular it was odd that a Jew wouldn’t feel honored at having such an important Sabbath guest. So the rabbi sent his servant into the anteroom to eavesdrop on the conversation inside the house.

  The servant heard the wife cry to her husband, “Fool! Stupid oaf! Where’s the harm in having a saintly guest for the Sabbath?”

  And the husband: “Wicked woman, do you want to shame me? You know I don’t know how to make the blessing over the wine.”

  The servant reported the conversation to the rabbi. The rabbi said, “Tell the man that I don’t want to spend the Sabbath with the other villager because once, long ago, when I was his guest and made the blessing over the wine, he blessed it again. And I don’t want to stay with a man who isn’t satisfied with the way I bless the wine.”

  “Ah,” said the villager happily, “in that case let the rabbi spend the Sabbath here with us.”

  69

  Holding On to One-Quarter of My World

  In the course of a great flood, a boatman helped a tsadek across a river. The holy man, seeing what an uncouth fellow the boatman was, pitied him and felt inclined to lecture him a little. “My son,” he said, “Is this really your trade?”

  “Oh, I also work on the timber rafts,” said the boatman.

  “But do you at least koyveya itim letoyre?” asked the holy man.

  “What does that mean, Rebbe?”

  “I’m merely asking whether you take time for studying the Torah—even so much as a chapter in the Mishnah.”

  “Rebbe, I can’t pay expenses with the Mishnah. I have to feed my children.”


  “Ah, ah, ah,” groaned the holy man. “A Jew without study is deprived of a quarter of his world. And I’m sorry to say that’s what you’ve done. But tell me, do you at least recite the Psalms?”

  “Rebbe, if I recited the Psalms, who’d carry the logs?”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” groaned the rebbe. “If only you recited the Psalms. Because a Jew who doesn’t recite the Psalms has wasted another quarter of his world.”

  A while later the rebbe said, “Tell me, my son, do you recite your prayers?”

  “A flood washed away the hut where I kept my prayer shawl and prayer book. And now I work with a troop of raftsmen, so I don’t get to pray.”

  “Ah, ah, ah. So you’ve wasted still another quarter of your world.”

  Just then the boat struck a rock and capsized. “Rebbe,” cried the boatman, “can you swim?”

  “No,” groaned the sinking rebbe.

  “In that case, you’ve wasted all four quarters of your world. But never mind. Grab on to me and I’ll pull your whole world to safety.”

  70

  The Poor Rabbi and His Three Daughters

  There was a poor rabbi who had three daughters. They owned but a single dress among them, so that two daughters always had to stay in bed on top of the oven while one showed herself in town.

  Their house was cold and damp. There was only a crust of bread lying in a cupboard drawer. Scratching about on the floor was a scrawny rooster, not one of your better-class roosters at all. Meanwhile the rabbi sat in a corner, singing a rapturous melody as he studied.

  One day a stranger who wore a shtrayml and had the look of a holy man came in and greeted the rabbi. He sat down and asked whether there might be something to eat.

  The rabbi found the crust of bread and gave it to him. Then he called one of the daughters lying on the oven and told her to have the rooster killed so that they could prepare food for the holy man.

  The girl put on the dress, tucked the rooster under her arm, and started off to the butcher’s.

  But the rooster broke loose and started to fly away. The girl ran after it, trying to catch it. She ran and the rooster kept leaping and fluttering away. They came to a fence where she was sure she had him, but the creature flew right over it.

  So she tried to climb the fence, but her dress caught and the skirt ripped from top to bottom.

  At this she wept and wrung her hands. How could she show herself in town with such a tear in her dress? Then she tried to find the rooster, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

  Her heart ached and tears gushed from her eyes. How, in her condition, would she even get home?

  When she had cried herself out, she stood leaning against the fence, utterly spiritless.

  Meanwhile night fell, but she continued to stand alone in the dark. All at once she caught a glimpse of something bright under the trees. And the thing grew brighter and lovelier, gleaming until it dazzled her.

  She began to think of stories she had heard about hidden treasure discovered by deserving people. But she remembered too that it was frequently demons who deceived the gullible with false treasure.

  Her heart pounding, she called in a trembling voice, “If that’s a real treasure, then let it come closer. If it’s the work of a demon, let it sink into the ground.”

  The thing began to shine brighter and brighter, then to move closer and closer, glowing and glittering and shimmering until it was quite near.

  So she picked up the ends of her torn skirt and, in spite of her fear, gathered up whole fistfuls of gold.

  Back in the rabbi’s house, everyone sat wondering where she was. They were ready to send someone in search of her, but the other daughters couldn’t get down from the oven because they had no clothes.

  It was very late when she finally staggered home, exhausted and with her torn skirt loaded with gold. As soon as she entered, they began to scold her. But the holy man, the guest, quieted them and told them that God had seen their poverty and suffering and had sent them a treasure to bless them.

  . . .

  Nakhman the tailor liked to whip out a humorous anecdote or a tune in the vestibule of the besmedresh, the House of Study. Sometimes I’d stray away from my grandfather, who stayed put in his corner at the back of the besmedresh, near the old wall clock whose pendulum went back and forth, back and forth. I’d sneak out into the vestibule and join the group of shoemakers and tailors who surrounded Nakhman, and I’d listen to his jokes and proverbs and tales.

  —Memoir from Pumpyan, Lithuania, the 1920s

  Short tales, quips, and capers, merry and satiric, are a beloved genre of Yiddish folklore. The language is rich with synonyms like vitsik-maysele, shpasik-maysele, khokhmele, shtuke, and shpitsele for such stories. These are the tales about jesters and pranksters, shlemiels and shlimazls, clever adventurers and rascals, riddle solvers, masters of repartee and Talmudic hairsplitters. As Yehoshua Ravnitski, one of the collectors of the vitsike-mayselekh, pointed out, whenever people, young or old, got together for a family or holiday celebration, or just happened to meet, swapping funny anecdotes was a favorite pastime. One person began by telling a vitsik-maysele related to whatever was being discussed. Another capped this jest with one about the same or a similar subject, only to be followed by a third person with another “suitcase of quips”—and so it would proceed, on and on.1 And then there was the batkhn, the master of ceremonies at weddings, a real specialist in humorous stories. Before the ceremony he helped create a solemn mood with tear-jerking improvisations, but after the service he donned the cloak of the comic entertainer and told merry stories into the night.2

  Every ethnic group seems to enjoy stories about simpletons, and some tell whole cycles of tales about entire towns of numbskulls. Thus there is the ancient Greek Abdera, the English Gotham, the Danish Molbo, and the German Schildburg. In Yiddish folklore Khelm, a real place in Poland, figures as the most famous of such towns.3 My father, born in the Ukraine in Letitshev, was fond of telling stories about Khelemer naronim (fools of Khelm) or, as they were affectionately, if ironically, dubbed, Khelemer khakhomim (wise men of Khelm).

  These “wise men of Khelm” lived in a world of their own. Children loved to hear and adults loved to tell about their absurd and inappropriate behavior. Stories like “The Hill Pushed Away” were favorites. Khelmites were sure to misread every Bible verse and misinterpret every injunction—always at great cost. They also had a penchant for ignoring reality, and a positive talent for overlooking the laws of nature, as in “The Rolling Stone” and “How Khelmites Lighted Up the Night.”

  In addition to the cycle of humorous tales about the not-so-bright denizens of Khelm, Yiddish folklore also has cycles of humorous anecdotes pegged to specific, real-life vitslers, or pranksters. If the Khelmite fools are the subjects of jests, the vitslers are the creators of jests, although at times the vitsler pretends to be a fool himself, in a jest of his own creation. While the Khelmite misunderstands reality, the vitsler manipulates it.4

  Each of our three vitslers comes from a different region: Hershele Ostropolyer from Volin in the Ukraine, Motke Khabad from Vilna in Lithuania, and Froyim Greydinger, the galitsyaner vitsler, from the region of Poland known as Galicia.5 Hershele Ostropolyer (1757–1811) has been described as a kind of jester at the Hasidic court of Rebbe Borukh Mezhbizher. Although some claim that Froyim Greydinger lived in the nineteenth century, others place him a century earlier, claiming that he supplied Hershele with jokes, anecdotes, and proverbs. Motke Khabad (1820–ca. 1880) is best known for his relationship with the Vilna Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon (1720–1797), a towering figure of rabbinic Judaism and an opponent of Hasidism. According to one tradition, Motke was said to have helped raise the spirits of the Gaon. The other has it that the Vilna Gaon, angry with Motke on one occasion, “cursed” him to live by his khokhmes, his wit and pranks.

  Hershele, Motke, and Froyim are basically poor folk whose pranks are a way of coping with poverty. They are given to mild teasing, as in “The C
ongregation Loves Jam,” or to droll and mischievous displays of absurd “logic,” as in “Reb Hershele and the Goose Leg.” But frequently, as in “Motke Khabad Needs a Place to Live,” a blacker humor, a darker tone of unhappy social satire underlies the tales. Like the parables told by itinerant preachers, the stories have an implicit, if not explicit, moral and often attack the bigotry and hypocrisy of the powerful within the Jewish community. It is not uncommon to find that the same tale is told now of one, now of another of these three figures.

  Other tales here offer a cross section of Yiddish folk humor. Some tell about numbskulls like Khushim (“Simpleton”), who would feel right at home in Khelm. Others are about Anyman/Anywoman: there are, for example, the shlemiel/shlimazl simpletons, like the foolish innkeeper so easily parted from his money by “The Visitor from the World Beyond”; sly scoundrels like the tailor who wanted to become a cantor; gifted riddle solvers like Moshke or “The Clever Girl”; women who demand the religious prerogatives of males and are ridiculed for doing so. There are anecdotes about misused logic, like “Then Where’s the Cat?” and misplaced conclusions, like “What Makes Tea Sweet?” which poke fun at casuistry and parody the subtle argumentation (pilpl) employed in studying the Talmud. In addition, there are the lovely cante fables, in which a melody becomes part of the story.6 The teller repeats a song again and again within the frame of the narrative. This way the audience can learn the tune and sing along.

  71

  The Clever Girl: A Riddle Tale

  Once upon a time there was a porets, a nobleman who had three leaseholders on his domain. One leased his woods and another his mill, while the poorest of the three held the lease on the inn.

  One day the nobleman sent for the three leaseholders and said, “I’m going to ask you three questions: What is the fastest thing in the world? What is the fattest thing in the world? And what is the dearest thing in the world? Whoever gives me the right answers within three days will be granted his leasehold for ten years without fee. But whoever gives the wrong answers will be driven from my estate.”